Michael Chapter 3
by Manofmarmots
Summary: We meet Doctor Evelina Volkov. Adam spends some time with Amy. Samandriel gets to watch Glee. And all is right with the world. Except for the rabbits.


Michael (Cont.)

Evelina Volkov looks into the darkness and the darkness is her. It has her eyes. It has her mouth. It pops its gum like she does. And it walks barefoot in the snow. Evelina Volkov has never feared darkness. She fears nothing. She became a goddess at 14. She fears nothing. When Oppenheimer ignited the first nuclear bomb at the Trinity Test in 1945, he became Death. Hardly. Less than half a century later she helped to develop the first gen-mods in a lab near the Kremlin in Moscow. And she became Life—Fire—Goddess—All. The population of Moscow was decimated. When wasn't it? And when the fires began, after hours of darkness, she walked barefoot in the snow and she could hear the beautiful sound of screaming. Her children brought her gifts.

Now she walks barefoot in a lab in bumfuck, USA. Where bum-fucking was ironically still illegal. Fucking savages. It's all so paltry. But Carver-Edlund gives her free reign—as she so rightly deserves. She passes tables on top of which are beakers in which are DNA samples. Thin white strands. Little threads of the universe. She admires how their simple appearance belies their complexity. It almost seems that one could pluck it out of the solution and sew it into her lab coat—how quaint—how appealing—to wear life around her like a shawl. She makes a mental note. She passes tables on top of which are computers—sleek—new—useless except for logging data. Modeling data. Recreating life. Bastardizing it. She resents them. She's unaccustomed to them. They hum constantly. They're humming now. She curls her lip. Machines. Repulsive. The soles of her feet slap the white tile floor. At last she reaches the cages stacked against a wall at the back of the lab. She peers into them. They're filled with rabbits. She inspects each one. Her eyes go fast. No. No. No. She sniffs. No. She doesn't register the stunning dissimilarity these rabbits bare to rabbits. The claws—the teeth—the proboscises—un-unusual. At last she stops at the cage of a plump looking brown one. Yes. She undoes the latch of the cage and takes it by the scruff of the neck. She returns to her worktable where an electric green concoction reaches a steady boil.

She reaches for a syringe—she undoes the plastic wrap—sterility is key—she pours the luke-warm-lime green chemical into a dish and draws some into the syringe. She pushes the end. It squirts. Her nose twitches eagerly. She's never needed a man or woman. She is all. She reviews the body of the rabbit carefully. She runs her fingers over its back feeling the looseness of its skin. She bites her lower lip. She pushes the needle into its flesh. She empties the syringe. The rabbit blinks. It twitches its whiskers. It sniffs. It sniffs. It sniffs. It can't sniff. It tries to sniff. There's pain in its little rabbit chest. Its heart is pumping faster. It sniffs. Can't sniff. Tries to sniff. There's a pain of cutting in its neck. It blinks. Its whole body constricts. It sniffs. Can't sniff. Tries to sniff. Can't sniff. Can't sniff. Can't sniff. Pain. At last the rabbit spasms and lies still.

Evelina Volkov takes it by the scruff of its neck and tosses it into a nearby pan. She goes to her workstation—with a computer—humming—and picks up a pad of PostIt notes. She removes one then goes to the rabbit. She leans against the countertop and writes "Please dissect. Take accurate notes for file on Formula 612." She sticks it onto the body of the rabbit.  
"Doctor Volkov?" There's a voice. Distressingly commanding. Smooth like a river. Evelina Volkov turns on the balls of her feet.

"Doctor Mara?"

"You didn't hear us come in?" she gestures to the orange-y girl and a boy. Blond hair. Stupid look. Pretty eyes.

"I was busy."

"We saw."

"What did you do to the rabbit?" The stupid boy speaks. Stupidly. Tiresome.

"I gave it gills."

"Oh." The answer looks to be insufficient.

"Was that answer not sufficient?"

"No, it was pretty sufficient." Stupid boy swallows. Nervous. Weak. "I was just wondering—Er—why?"

He doesn't understand. Nobody understands. It is her tragedy. She scowls. "Why not?"

"I think what Doctor Volkov means is that the tactical advantage of any appendage shouldn't be underestimated." That's not what she means. Mara raises her eyebrows. Fuck Mara. The orange-y girl smiles. She's uncomfortable. Fuck the orange-y girl.

"I suppose you want me to take notes and log 'em for you?"

"No, I was think I would do it myself obviously there's nothing else I should be using my genius for except to type numbers into little boxes." She rolls her eyes.

"Okeydokey." She sounds defeated. Good. "Adam if you want the Milky Ways are in my desk. I can show you where we keep the bodies for dissection. I can show you how to dissect bodies!" Her enthusiasm is palpable. Evelina Volkov licks the back of her teeth. She watches the stupid one and the orange-y one walk away. She turns to do something with a beaker but Mara steps in front of her. Fuck Mara.

"What were you thinking?"

"Right now I am thinking about twenty-thousand different things; you'll have to narrow it down." Fuck Mara.

"That boy is a prime candidate for Project Michael. It is imperative that we put on our best face—his compliance is invaluable."

"To you." Evelina Volkov attempts to push past Mara but Mara takes her by the arm.

"To my higher ups."

Evelina stops for a moment. She knows what that means. Fuck what that means. She curls her lips.

"I'll have Pond show him the bunny rabbits. Perhaps he would like to pet them? Give them eskimo kisses. Then maybe we can give him a lollipop?" The word is thick in her mouth. She practically spits it at Mara. Mara smiles with her mouth. Never her eyes.

"If that boy asks for a lollipop, you give him a lollipop. If he asks you to stick a nine inch wooden dildo in your ass then I don't care if you're pulling splinters out until next Sunday—you do it. Are we clear?" Mara smiles. Fuck Mara.

…

Adam watches Amy reach into the bottom drawer of her desk. At the bottom of her lab coat her calves are sticking out. They're full and cream and peach. Adam licks his lips. He hopes he's not staring. He's totally staring.

"A-ha! Here we are." She comes out of the bottom drawer of her desk. She's got three little Milky Way Bars in her hand. "Two for you," she hands them to him, "And one for me." She peals back the gold foil raises the brown square to her mouth and bites it in half. She visibly enjoys letting it melt. Her eyes close. She smiles. She opens her eyes. Adam's staring. She laughs. She snorts. She covers her mouth. Her eyes are still laughing. She swallows.

"I'm so embarrassed. I make a food-face."

"No, don't be." Adam smiles and his teeth come apart a little. "It was a good face."

"Yeah, okay." She puts the second half into her mouth. She waits for it to melt. She looks at Adam. She laughs.

"What?"

She stops. She breathes. "Don't look. You're making me corpse. Eat yours."

Adam tears the foil off of one of his chocolate bars and puts the whole thing in his mouth. Then he talks, "Corpsing? Is that a medical term?"

"No, it's something actors do. It's when they can't stop laughing even when they're trying to be serious. I just like to use it because, well—"She waves her hands around, "corpses."

"Huh?"

"We're surrounded by corpses."

"Oh." Adam stops chewing his Milky Way. He swallows a couple of times to get it down with spit. "Corpses?"

"Yeah. Mostly Gen-Mods. Mostly expired test subjects. Sometimes we get a salvage and that's a good day because you never know what's happened to a particular strain out there—in the wild."

"Oh."

"Mostly I get to do the dissecting. Evelina's usually too busy being a" she breathes it out of the side of her mouth in sing-song, "big time major Russian genius."

"She's…interesting."

"She's brilliant. A pain in the rear but unquestionably one of the great biochemists of all time. She invented the Vampire Gen-Mod." Adam raises his eyebrows appreciatively.

"Wow. Wow. She looks—is she older than me?"

"How old are you?"

Adam puffs up a little, "Nineteen."

"Oh, you're just a baby!" And he deflates. Amy laughs. "So's Evelina. She's twenty-two. But she was barely out of Pampers before she started—doing all sorts of things. Do they have Pampers in Russia?"

"Probably not. Probably just used broken glass from a vodka bottle—zing—"he laughs at himself. Amy smiles bemusedly. But she's not laughing. "Because they drink…vodka in Russia…and it's shitty…there…" She laughs. He smiles.

"You can save you're other Milky Way for later. Right now I'm going to show you how we log dissection notes. Ever seen the inside of a gilled rabbit before?"

"Er, no."

"Well neither has nobody!" She takes him by the wrist. He melts a little. He can feel it in his belly.

…

That night Adam's back in the home. His day clothes are back in his bags which are back with most of his personal effects behind the front desk. He's wearing hospital whites now. The smokes are gone from the breast pocket.

"Fuck." He goes to his bed and sits on the end. He takes his slippers off. He puts the soles of his feet to the clean hardwood floors. They're cool. He lies back on his bed his feet on the ground. He stares at the white ceiling and blinks.

"You have choice," she said. "Of course you have a choice."

"But I have to stay in crazy people jail?"

"We'd prefer it. If you decide to become Michael it would expedite the process."

"How long to have to decide?"

"There's no time-frame, Adam. We would, of course, like it if you made your decision sooner than later. Eliminate redundancies of effort."

"I'll get back to you soon."

"Please do."

"Thanks for lunch."

"Any time." And she didn't even shake his hand. She just closed the office door. Meg found him. And they left. He breathes through his nose. He stretches out on the bed until his fingertips touch the wall on the other side. No headboard. Nothing to bang your head against. He wonders if he should sleep. Lights out isn't for another hour or so. Can't tell. No clock. He rolls over onto his belly. He can feel his toenail tap against the floor. He wonders where Samandriel is. Probably community room. He pushes his face into the mattress. He breathes through the fabric. He thinks about how crazy he looks. He smiles into the mattress. He turns over onto his back. He searches for his slippers with his big toe. He hooks one and slides it back towards the bed. He can't find the other. He sits up. He slides one foot into one slipper. Where's the other one? He stands up. He's uneven. He crouches and looks beneath the bed. Nothing. Shadows. He stands up.

"Fuck." It's only been off a second. Maybe someone came in? He steps out of his room. Looks down the hall. Nothing. No one. Fluorescents. He can hear the television in the community room. Canned laughter and fuzzy reception. He walks towards it. His bare foot falls and slaps his slippered foot slides. He looks from side to side, embarrassed. Fall, slap, slide, fall, slap, slide. He winces. Someone's going to hear. He passes opened doors. Inside are other people dressed as he is-white clothes, slippers. Some of them look more alert than others. They watch him as they dribble on themselves. Some look less alert than others. They stand close to the wall their noses almost touching. Their eyes seem to follow something as it makes its way up the wall and across the ceiling—but who can tell? Fall, slap, slide, fall, slap, slide. The pounding of his bare foot on hard floor begins to hurt. He winces more from pain than embarrassment.

The narrow hallway opens up a little. On one side are doors to the kitchen on the other doors to the community room. At the top of both are little glass windows. Adam peers through and sighs. He turns the handle and enters the TV room.

"How did you even get that?"

"I dematerialized it. Then I rematerialized it." Samandriel sits a few feet from a large entertainment center—"mahogany"—his wheelchair moves slightly forward and slightly back as his fingers twitch. In his lap is Adam's slipper.

"Is that angel-speak for stole it like a no-good-dirty-rotten-stealer?"

"No."

Adam fall, slap, slides to Samandriel and picks his slipper up out of his lap. "Please tell me it wasn't subbing for a sock." Samandriel stares. His fingers tap.

"Alright. What are we watching?"

"Spongebob."

"Choice." Adam crosses in front of Samandriel and takes a seat on the community couch which is beat-up and smelly and mauve.

"Adam?"

"Yeah?"

"All New Glee tonight on Fox."

"So you can dematerialize my slipper but you can't change the channel?" Samandriel stares.

"Just so you know everyone in this room right now hates you." Adam looks at the only other occupant, a timid looking girl who has become incredibly interested in the contents of her draw-string pants. Samandriel's fingers tap. Adam goes to the TV and presses the Channel Up button. When he sees saturated colors and teenage angst he stops. He goes back to the couch. He flops. He lays his head on the arm near Samandriel.

"Hey I got you a Milky Way? It's in my room. If you want it." Samandriel's fingers tap. "I met a girl today." Samandriel's fingers tap. "A woman, actually. She's got to be thirty. At least. Pretty." Adam's eyes move back and forth. He can see the warped face of Rachel Berry in the rims of Samandriel's wheel. "How was your day?" Samandriel gurgles. "That's good." Adam puts his hand out. Samandriel's eyes flicker towards it. His mouth opens slightly. Adam withdraws his hand. He doesn't know what he was doing.

"Adam?"

"Don't tell me it's a repeat. I will cut you."

"Thank you." Adam looks at Samandriel. His eyes are on the screen. He begins to hum. Adam hears him. It's kind of tuneless. But it's soothing and his eyes close. It seems just for a second but when he opens them there's an orderly telling him to go back to his room. Samandriel's gone—and both his slippers are gone.

"Sam."


End file.
